It is difficult to improve the practice in the Montenegrin public procurement system when the “rules of the game” keep changing. The penultimate day of 2019 brought the new Public Procurement Law (PPL), which introduced a number of new rules, along with a timeline of only six months for the players to master those.
The new rules impacted also the security sector; however, the Government Decree on the list of military equipment and products, procedure and method of conducting public procurement in the fields of defence and security limited the arbitrary actions of contracting authorities only to a certain extent. The system of planning and reporting on these procurements was not significantly improved. Planning was not tied to the strategic objectives in the security and defence sector, while security procurements were envisaged to be reported only to the Ministry of Finance. Other oversight instances, such as the National Security Council, and in particular the Parliamentary Security and Defence Committee, were not integrated in the oversight system.
According to the publicly available annual reports on public procurement, four institutions, namely the Ministry of Interior (MoI), Police Administration (PA), Ministry of Defence (MoD) and National Security Agency (NSA), spent in aggregate close to €30 million on public procurement in 2018, while the MoI alone spent as much in 2019. The four institutions’ total spending on public procurement in 2019 amounted to close to €42.5 million. It usually remains unknown, however, what share of that amount referred to security procurement, or if any additional amounts were spent. No specific reports are prepared on this segment of spending.
During the three-year legal vacuum brought about by the 2017 amendments to the PPL, due to the incomplete and ambiguous regulatory framework, the contracting authorities conducted procurement in a hybrid fashion: they applied the open procedure, while classifying some data, such as technical specifications, contracts and such. The contracting authorities continued to conduct public procurement in such a manner even after the adoption of the new Law and Decree, which had a negative impact on the remedies system.
The NSA remains the most secretive institution in the security and defence system – not only was their spending on security procurement a secret, but so was also the relevant regulation. That leaves the State Audit Institution (SAI) as the only witness of any irregularities concerning the spending on security procurement. SAI’s audits in the security sector are not frequent enough.
Platform is created so that young people can surf through the abundance of content on various topics, find fact-checked information, interesting trivia and infographics, listen to podcasts, or watch and register for our events, and shape the platform themselves – by writing blogs and expressing opinion about various topics.
And what does MladiRini stand for?
These two words could simply be translated into “young” in the languages of the countries of the Western Balkans (“mladi” (BHSM, Mkd) and “rini” (Alb)).
Platform is created by the team of organisations from all Western Balkans countries, members of the Think for Europe (TEN) network.
Platform is launched within the project “Make Future Together: EU and the Western Balkans from the Youth Perspective”, implemented by a network of think tanks from 6 countries in the region (Think for Europe Network – TEN), together with International Affairs Institute in Rome, Bronislaw Geremek Foundation in Warsaw and European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels. The project is funded by the European Union through the Europe for Citizens program.
Gender neutral laws are one of the main factors of perpetuating gender inequality in Montenegro. Laws that are supposed to be ‘’equal for all’’ ignore the inequality of women in many areas – it was the conclusion of today’s conference organised by the Institute Alternative.
At the conference ‘’Gender Equality and Public Policies in Montenegro: More Than Quotas’’ there were presented key findings on the gender mainstreaming and public policies, with special focus on the laws in the field of labour, healthcare and entrepreneurship, which were adopted in 2019.
Nikoleta Pavićević (IA), the author of the analysis, said that although assessment of the impact that policies may have on the position of women and men is mandatory when making decisions, this legal duty is ignored by decision makers. She added that this is illustrated by the Labor Law, stipulating, due to the pressure by owners of companies, that women employed on short-term contracts who take pregnancy leave would not have that period count towards the 36-month term required to obtain permanent employment.
She pointed out that the improvement of women’s rights is often more a consequence of ‘’automatic’’ alignment of legal provisions with EU acquis, and not a result of analysis and consultations with women and men. Such harmonisation of legal solutions with EU acquis, although contributing to better protection of rights, is not based on a detailed analysis of the current situation and different practical and strategic needs of women and men in the sectors which address specific problems encountered by women in Montenegro.
Božena Jelušić, President of the Gender Equality Committee in the Parliament of Montenegro, pointed out the importance of a gender-sensitive Parliament, but also gender-sensitive budget planning. In that sense, her suggestion is to launch an initiative for additional empowerment of women through agro-budget and by proposing a special fund for women in agriculture.
She particularly pointed out the problem of representation of women in management positions in education. ‘’Although education is feminised, women are not in decision-making positions’’, she said. Moreover, she would initiate that in the selections of school principals, in the case of equal qualifications, preference is given to women.
Ivana Zečević, Head of the Directorate for Development of Small and Medium Business in the Ministry of Economic Development, said that we have a significant progress in the last five years when it comes to women who are business owners (7,000 of them) and that 14 municipalities have female entrepreneurship programs. She also announced that the Ministry of Economic Development will make a detailed evaluation of the achievements in the last four years and determine strategic directions, but also the main obstacles. She concluded that the progress has been made in creating a business environment, but not to extent of the women’s needs – where the issue of tax relief for women in the first years of business, as well as providing the funds are still the main issues.
Irena Joksimović, Head of the Directorate for Work Affairs in the Ministry of Economic Development, said that in certain parts of the new Labor Law, women’s rights have been significantly improved compared to the previous law. As significant improvements, she mentioned a day off for prenatal care visit for employed pregnant women, earlier use of parental leave by fathers in case of multiply pregnancy, as well as a pause for breastfeeding during working hours, which is extended from 60 minutes to 2 hours.
Nina Milović, Head of the Directorate for Organisation and Functioning of Health Care in the Ministry of Health Care, said that it is necessary to provide more comprehensive analysis of women’s health in the community, identification of health problems, women’s needs of all ages and risk factors to women’s health, so that women’s health care programs could be defined.
All conference participants agreed that the area of gender-based statistics is especially underdeveloped and the evidence is the fact that there are no reliable data about gender pay gap or a comprehensive database of women’s entrepreneurship.
During the discussion, the problem of abuse of contracts on temporary and occasional jobs were also discussed, as those are the contracts which are often concluded contrary to the law and which have negative effects on women’s position. Also, the importance of a gender analysis of the response to the coronavirus pandemic is emphasised, as well as advocacy in order to create a gender responsive support measures for women, especially for those in vulnerable groups, which were missing from previous packages of measures adopted during the pandemic.
The final version of the analysis presented at today’s conference, will be available soon on the website of the Institute Alternative.
The analysis was made within the project ‘’More Than Quotas: Gender Mainstreaming and Public Policies in Montenegro’’, implemented by Institute Alternative, with financial support of the Ministry of Justice, Human and Minority Rights.
Lack of control, strategic procurement planning, as well as lack of reporting are the main problems related to procurement in the security and defence sector. It is necessary to implement substantial reforms, proactive internal and external controls, as well as identify corrupt practices in this area.
This is stated at the panel discussion ”Procurement in the security and defence sector: New „game rules”, old issues”, organised within the project ”For the better use of public money!’’. Institute Alternative conduct this project with financial support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Stevo Muk, president of Managing Board at Institute Alternative, said that we have not yet witnessed significant progress in terms of public spending transparency for public procurement in general, and especially for those in the security and defence sector.
”Having in mind that Montenegro is a NATO member, we believe that those reforms should have happened much earlier. Our earlier research, similar to the one we present today, which was conducted in 2018 has shown that security procurement most often happens far from the eyes of the public, institutional and public control. The term confidential procurement has domiciliate in the regulations and the practice has fully justified that name’’, said Muk.
Although the regulations have changed slightly, the practice, as he pointed out, has remained the same.
”We believe that the time for substantial public procurement reforms in general has come. It is time for identifying corrupt practices and risks for corruption at all stages of public procurement, for more proactive internal and external control and for more responsibility of all stakeholders involved in the process from planning to execution and control of contract execution and especially more transparency and less discretionary powers in all stages of the process’’, concluded Muk.
Olivera Injac, the Minister of Defence of Montenegro, pointed out that the key goal is to improve normative and legal framework in the field of security and defence procurement, but also to pay attention to affirmation of transparency when conducting public procurement.
”It is obvious that this has not been the case so far. On the other hand, it is necessary to emphasise something that is a matter of integrity policy, but not only on the paper. This should be one of the main policies of our Ministry, as well as of other institutions within the security sector. This proactive approach is important in order to eliminate all potential risks for corruption’’, said Injac.
Public procurement and the whole area of finance, as she pointed out, require absolutely clear, consolidated and targeted activity within each institution, that must create preconditions to avoid any potential risk which can disturb integrity of any individual or institution through that process.
”Our attention is to improve all procedures in order to simply create conditions to understand the degree and form of transparency that must exist, but also to harmonise what is confidentiality and the need for the public to know’’ , said Injac.
As she said, the harmonisation of legal regulations with EU regulations is forthcoming, but also harmonisation with positive practices in the procurement area of other NATO members.
”A completely new reform is coming, while the best solutions will be kept’’, said Injac.
Ana Đurnić,Public Policy Researcher at the Institute Alternative, said that the main problems at the security procurement area are lack of control, strategic procurement planning and lack of reporting.
”We believe that the future work of the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Finance and the Government of Montenegro should start from the changes of the Regulation on Procurement in the Security Sector. On that level, we believe that it is possible to improve this system without too much work and too demanding reforms. We believe that the improvement of the reporting and planning system should be in focus and that should be clearly defined which are the levels and procurement in the security sector that can be accessed to the public in terms of data availability. Also, it should be defined which are the ones that can be used to reach a certain level of external oversight institutions and which are the ones that can be accessed only by those institutions that have access to confidential data’’, stated Đurnić.
She added that according to the findings of Transparency International, Montenegro is classified in the group of countries with an increased risk of corruption in the area of security procurement spending, bearing in mind the complete absence of external oversight of these procurement.
The research that was conducted, as she said, covered the period from 2018 to 2020.
‘’The last time we did a similar analysis was in 2018 and we wanted to see what happened in the meantime. Apart from legal regulations, very little has changed in practice, we can say nothing. We have a new Law on Public Procurement and a new Regulation and they have contributed in terms of harmonisation with European Union directives and in the terms of the fact that is clearer what is procurement in the security and defence sector. We are satisfied because the Law has crystallised the types of procurement in the security sector and the level of transparency that can be provided for them, but we are extremely dissatisfied that the planning and reporting system on these procurement has not been improved in any way” , said Đurnić.
Jelena Jovetić, General Director of the Directorate for Public Procurement Policy in the Ministry of Finance, has pointed out that the ministry was previously committed to regulatory reforms in public procurement and that the result was achieved, which the European Commission marked as one of the most stable systems in Western Europe.
‘’In the previous six months, we paid special attention to transparency, not only in the security and defence sector, but also in all other procurement in that part. As far as the Ministry of Finance is concerned, I can say that in terms of transparency, we have an enviable level even comparing to the member states of the European Union”, said Jovetić.
It is very important that now we have a clear separation between what is procurement, what is public and what is sensitive procurement, which segments of procurement, in what way and in accordance with which regulations can be declared as confidential.
Slađana Miletić, the representative of the Direction for Procurement and Contracting in the Ministry of Defence, said that the new Law came into force in July, and in August the Contracting Authority’s Internal Act, Rulebook on special public procurement in the security and defence sector was adopted. She added that this Act is available on the website of the Ministry of Defence.
‘’This document covers the procurement procedure based on all three points that deal with special public procurement in the security and defence sector”, said Miletić.
It is very important, as she believes, that for special public procurement in the security and defence sector there is a procedural procedure in the system, documented and justified reasons for choosing such a method of procurement that allows procurement without provisions of the Law, but in accordance with by-laws.
During the discussion, the deputy in the Parliament of Montenegro Zdenka Popović, said that it is in interest of all citizens to know how their money is spent when it comes to confidential procurement.
‘’Non-transparency allows abuse. Huge amount of money are spent on public procurement procedures. If we know that 450 to 500 million euros are spent per year, then we have to ask ourselves whether the principle of transparency and the principle of competitiveness are respected’’, said Popović.
Panel discussion was organised by the Institute Alternative within the project ‘’For the better use of public money’’. The project is financially supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The opinions and views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Embassy.
Institute Alternative (IA) is organising the public discussion “Procurement in the security and defence sector: New“game rules”, same issues”, that will be held on February 3rd, starting at 10am, hotel Hilton (Princess Jelena Hall),
During the panel discussion we will present a policy brief ‘’Procurement in the security and defence sector; New ‘game rules’’, same issues’’, as an overview of developments in this area in the past two years, for how long it has been since we published our analysis “Confidential Procurement in Montenegro: Far from Public’s Control’’.
The analysis is in the draft stage and its key findings will be represented at the public discussion. We organise it as a forum for discussion in regard to this topic, but also as a possibility to hear suggestions of key policy makers in the sector of public procurement, defence and security in regard to its content. Taking into u account all of the participants’ and discussants’ comments, we will finalise and publish the analysis after the event.
Given the current epidemiological conditions and the recommended measures to combat the Covid 19 virus epidemic, we are organising this event in the so-called hybrid format. Participants will be able to follow the panel discussion from the Princess Jelena Hall, but also through the Zoom application.
Public discussion is organised within the project ‘’For the better use of public money’’. The project is financially supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
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